{"id":5906,"date":"2022-11-07T09:24:48","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T15:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/?p=5906"},"modified":"2022-11-07T09:48:41","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T15:48:41","slug":"early-paper-ray-tracing-news-editions-unearthed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/early-paper-ray-tracing-news-editions-unearthed\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Paper “Ray Tracing News” Editions Unearthed!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I asked Andrew Glassner if he had the original paper issues of the Ray Tracing News<\/a><\/em> available. He replied, “About an hour ago I entered the vault, filled with nitrogen to prevent decay, put on the fiber-free white gloves, and was allowed to view the original manuscripts.” In other words, he found them in some box (I suspect I have them in some different box, too, somewhere…). He kindly scanned all four and they’re now available as PDFs<\/a>, hosted here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew started this informal journal for us ray tracing researchers immediately after SIGGRAPH 1987, where he had organized the first “ray-tracing roundtable.” It was no mean feat to gather us together, check the email list at the end of the first issue<\/a>. Tip: I’m no longer at hpfcla!hpfcrs!eye!erich@hplabs.HP.COM. Delivery was like the Pony Express back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having these (virtually) in hand makes the Ray Tracing News<\/em> collection online<\/a> complete, sort of like catching all the Pok\u00e9mon. It’s nice to have these publications available on the web now. I enjoy seeing ideas such as Jim Arvo’s simulated annealing<\/a> and Paul Heckbert’s minimal ray tracer<\/a> where they first appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, the issues have filler cartoons, made by Andrew – these follow. Hey, I enjoyed them. Ray tracing is not a rich vein of comedy gold; there isn’t exactly an abundance of comics on the subject (I know of this<\/a>, this<\/a>, and this one<\/a>, at most – xkcd<\/a> and SMBC<\/a>, step up your game. Well, SMBC at least had this<\/a>, and xkcd this<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We finally, a mere 30-odd years later, have tracing tablets (if you view some Shadertoys on an iPad).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I asked Andrew Glassner if he had the original paper issues of the Ray Tracing News available. He replied, “About an hour ago I entered the vault, filled with nitrogen to prevent decay, put on the fiber-free white gloves, and was allowed to view the original manuscripts.” In other words, he found them in some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5906"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5913,"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5906\/revisions\/5913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}